[Emphases have been added and are not part of the original text.]
Dear brothers and sisters!
This evening we are here before Mary. We have prayed to her, to maternally take us more and more in union with her Son Jesus; we have brought her our joys and our sorrows, our hopes and our difficulties; we have invoked her with the lovely name “Salus Populi Romani” (“protectress of the Roman people”) asking for all of us, for Rome, for the world that she keep us in good health. Yes, because Mary gives us health, she is our saving grace.
With his Passion, Death and Resurrection, Jesus Christ brings us salvation, the grace and the joy of being God’s children and the possibility of calling him with the name of the Father. Mary is a mother, a mother who takes care above all of the health of her children and knows how to heal them with her great and tender love. The Madonna is the custodian of our health. What does this mean? My thoughts go, above all, to three aspects: she helps us in our growth, she helps us to face life, she teaches us to be free.
1. A mother helps her children to grow and it is her wish that they grow well; this is why she teaches them to not yield to laziness – which is something that derives also from certain well-being -, she teaches them not to adapt themselves to a life of ease that desires nothing beyond material possessions. A mother takes care that her children’s growth is not stunted, that they grow strong and capable of taking responsibilities upon themselves, that they take on commitments in life and lean towards great ideals. The Gospel of Luke says that in the family of Nazareth Jesus “grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him”(Luke 2,40). This is exactly what the Madonna does with us, she helps us to grow humanely and in faith, to be strong and not to yield to the temptation of being men and Christians in a superficial way, but to live with responsibility, reaching upwards all the time.
2. And then, a mother thinks of the health of her children, teaching them to face the difficulties of life. One does not educate, one does not look after someone’s health avoiding problems, as if life was a highway without obstacles. A mother helps her children to look to the problems in life with realism, not to lose oneself in them but to tackle them with courage, not to be weak, to know how to overcome them, in a healthy balance that a mother can “feel” is to be found in between the areas of safety and of risk. A life without challenges does not exist and a boy or a girl who does not know how to face challenges and put himself or herself on the line, has no backbone! Let us remember the parable of the Good Samaritan: Jesus does not commend the behavior of the priest or of the Levite, who avoid assisting the traveler who had been beaten, robbed and left half dead along the road, but that of the Samaritan who saw the situation of the man and tackled it in a concrete manner. Mary lived many difficult times in her life, from the birth of Jesus, when “there was no room for him in the inn” (Luke 2,7), up until the Calvary: (John 19,25). And like a good mother she is close to us so that we never lose courage before the adversities of life, before our own weaknesses, before our sins: she gives us strength, she points to the path of her Son. From the cross, indicating John, Jesus tells Mary: “Woman, here is your son,” and to John: “Here is your mother!” (John 19,26-27). We are all represented by that disciple: the Lord entrusts us to the loving hands and to the tenderness of the Mother, so that we can rely on her support when we face and overcome the difficulties of our human and Christian journey.
3. One last aspect: a good mother not only accompanies her children during their growth, not avoiding the problems and the challenges of life; a good mother also helps to take important decisions with freedom. But what does freedom mean? Certainly not doing all that one wants, letting oneself be dominated by passions, passing from one experience to the next without discernment, following the trends of the moment; freedom does not mean, so to say, throwing all that one does not like from the window. Freedom is given to us so that we make good choices in life! As a good mother, Mary teaches us to be, like she is, capable of making important decisions with the same full freedom with which she answered “yes” to God’s plan for her life (Luke 1,38).
Dear brothers and sisters, how difficult it is in our time to take important decisions! The ephemeral seduces us. We are victims of a tendency that pushes us towards the ephemeral… as if we wished to remain adolescents throughout our lives! We must not be afraid of definitive commitments, of commitments that involve and have an effect on our whole lives. In this way our lives will be fruitful!
The whole existence of Mary is a hymn to life, a hymn to love and to life: she generated Jesus the man and she accompanied the birth of the Church on Mount Calvary and in the Cenacle. The “Salus Populi Romani” is the mother that looks after our growth, she helps us face and overcome problems, she gives us freedom when we make important decisions; she is the mother who teaches us to be fruitful of good, joy, hope, to give life to others, both physical and spiritual life.
This is what we are asking of you this evening, Oh Mary, Salus Populi Romani, for the people of Rome, for all of us: give us the grace that only you can give, so that we may always be signs and tools of life.
教宗：瑪利亞，請助我們抵禦誘惑作出明確選擇
教宗方濟各返回聖母雪地大殿誦念玫瑰經。每一個「好媽媽」「幫助我們成長、面對生活、享受自由。」「沒有挑戰的人生不存在的，孩子不知道該如何面對挑戰」。自由「不是按自己的需要去做，讓個人的激情帶動，沒有辨別之下，從一個經驗傳遞到下一個。自由是給我們在生活中做出正確的選擇！」
羅馬（亞洲新聞） - 能夠作出明確的決定，以抗拒誘惑。教宗懇求瑪利亞，形容她的生命是一首「生命贊歌」，作為一位「好媽媽」，「幫助我們成長、面對生活、享受自由。」祈禱時常是生命的標記和工具，這是教宗方濟各今晚在羅馬聖母雪地大殿，向聖母誦念玫瑰經后的默想分享。
教宗抵達首間在西方奉獻給聖母的大殿。他在3月14日（圖）他當選翌日曾經到哪裡祈禱。在傍晚時，已有大批群眾在等候他。他在大門處吻了十字架，作為「接管」大殿的象征行動，然后入內在聖母畫像前祈禱，誦念玫瑰經的歡喜五端。
在聖母祈禱后，教宗方濟各向在場的信眾，談到瑪利亞作為一位母親，就像所有好媽媽一樣，「照顧她的孩子的健康，並知道她如何以偉大和溫良的愛如何來治療他們。聖母是我們健康的托管人。什麼意思？我想，這有三方面：她幫助我們成長；她幫助我們面對生活；她教導我們要自由。」
「一位母親幫助其孩子成長，她希望他們長大；這就是為什麼她教導子女不要屈服於懶惰。她教導他們不要不用隻渴望超越物質財富。一位母親照顧孩子，隻要他們的成長不是發育不良，他們成長強壯，能夠負起自己的責任，及承諾在生活的投身，以及傾向偉大的理想。聖母幫助我們以人性和在信德中成長，要堅強，而不要屈服於膚淺的誘惑，人和基督徒，要度有責任的生活，時常向上。」
「然后，母親挂心孩子的健康，教導他們面對生活的困難。人不是教育，不是看顧他們的健康以避免有問題，仿佛生命是一條沒有障礙的公路。一位母親幫助她的孩子面對現實生活中存在的問題，不要在他們中失去自己，但要有勇氣去解決這些問題，不是要軟弱，而是要知道如何克服這些問題，以一個健康的平衡方式，一位母親可以感受，可以在安全及有風險之間。」
「最后一方面：一位好母親不僅伴隨著她的孩子，他們的成長過程中，不回避問題和生活的挑戰；一位好母親，有助充滿自由去作出重大決策。但自由是什麼意思？當然不要讓自己的激情主導事情，要有明辨能力，把一個經驗傳遞到下一個。否則，就像把不喜歡的東西從窗口扔出去，這不是自由。自由要我們在生活中做出很好的選擇！作為一個好母親，瑪利亞教導我們，在重要的決定，一如她自己，以充分自由，對於天主對她的生活的計劃，回答『是』。」
「我們的時代要作出重要決定是何等困難！這短暫的事誘惑我們。我們是這種傾向的受害者，它催迫我們邁向短暫。一如我們希望我們的整個生活保持青少年心態！我們絕不能害怕明確承諾，該承諾要參與並影響我們的整個生命。這樣，我們的生活將是碩果累累！」
「瑪利亞的存在是一首生命贊歌，一首愛與生命的贊歌。她養育耶穌成人，她在加爾瓦略山上陪伴教會誕生，在晚餐廳亦然。聖母照顧我們的成長，她可以幫助我們面對和克服的問題，她給了我們自由去做重要決定；她是教我們富有善、喜悅、希望、給生命別人，包括身體和精神生活。這是我今天晚上，希望大家一起祈禱。噢，瑪利亞，為了羅馬人民，為我們所有人：求你給我們的恩寵，隻有你可以給我們，成為我們生命的標志和工具。」【妮】
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